NO MORE TORTURE

[ULICK MC GEE]

I along with the vast majority of people did not agree with,then blamed and some even hated bush,i never hated him but i am guilty of the first two.
When i watched him give his last speech as pres from the white house i was exspecting a feeble,bumbling excuses for the last 8 year's.George w bush gave a very honest explainasion of his term in office he changed my opinion of him completely.
i cannot think of any other amercian politician who would have done better in that situation,i am afan of clinton but i think he would have been to namby pamby and concerned about his popularity.What was needed was strong disciplined action,it took a very strong,determined,level headed postive leader and bush was all of these and more,yes mistakes were made but we always say learn from your mistakes.Bush knew from his oil dealing's what type of people arabs are,custons,attutide etc ,that gave him an advantage the man ,under the circumstance's,was a true leader and along with tony blair they took the war to them.
If bush was the warmonger people want us to believe he was why didn't he nuke them and be done with.Listen to the speech it might change your opinion.

[LoongLee]

That took a lot of grit,, Ulick McGee,, to at least admit you looked at Pres Bush with an open mind and gave him an "A for effort". I have been a supporter of his from the beginning and nothing the biased liberal slanted media has said about him has changed my mind. I thank God we didn't have Al Gore as Pres when the Twin Towers were destroyed. Has George Bush made mistakes or could some things have been done differently in hindsight,,, Absolutely!! I didn't agree with several programs and how they were run.,,,however people need to realize "you have to be doing something for people to say you did the wrong thing" ,, I honestly believe history will be kinder to Pres George "W" Bush than current talking heads on network TV and their opinion. He and Laura always showed a lot of class, especially during the handover process, something that was incredibly grass and low when the Clinton team vacated the White House.

The oppostion always uses the race card when someone critizises Obama. Folks,,,, I don't care if Obama is polka dotted or red white and blue, or as white as the driven snow,,, I don't trust him and the people he's always associated with. And I disagree with most of his social engineering programs headed for more government intervention in my daily life. I don't care if he's black or half black, I just wish he was a conservative. That's my rant,, cheers, LL

[ULICK MC GEE]

well loongleg i try and call it as i see it,as for Obama if he think's his nice guy,new best friend approach towards arab's will work he is very much mistaken,what he is forgetting is the arab's did not hate clinton,bush or him,they hate what he repersent's i.e Westren lifestyle,value's and custom's,he is only a figurehead to aim there hatred at .When we start reading koran,praying 5 times daily and living like arab's then maybe they might tolerate us,now his approach is taken as a sign of weakness.
Al sharptons silence is also worring.

[aznyron]

L.L. & U.M.G. you both can pin medals on GWB that is your provocative. But I have entirely different
view of him I believe if he was NOT elected the world trade center would be still standing today
and we would not be fighting a war in Iraq and Saddam would still rule over it. Just remember
it was our Government who put him in charge. as for Afghanistan I will not comment since it possible we would be there over some phony reason. I suspect it because it borders Russia JMHO

[ULICK MC GEE]

Aznyron,i am irish and totally independent,i would prefer to think i am expressing my view point as honestly as i can rather then pinning medals.To the best of my knowledge i believe intellgence report's on a major attack on americian soil were going across clinton's desk.
Bush was 8 months in office when 9/11 happened,i also believe intellgence reports suggest some of terrorists were in america for up to 18 months before the attack and in my own humble opinion i don't think an attack of such magnatude could be planned in 8 months.To blame GW for 9/11 is misguided,again IMO the seed's may well have been sown in GHW'S term.Is it not a good thing saddam is gone ?.
POPPY'S.I assume it is now nearly impossable for bin laden to access or move large amount's of cash needed to maintain his army,again IMO talaban,al queda are planning to finance their activies through Heroin production an sale.There has been an increase in poppy farming worldwide over the past 1-2 years,in thailand some hill tribes have returned to poppy farming for the first time in two years.laos cambodia,vietnam,burma ,pakistan have all increased production.Why so.
The prices offered give a lot more profit then growing normal produce.It is clear from the increase of production in so many different countries that this organised and not a fluke,who ever is behind this if sucessful will have unlimited fund's and who needs that amount of cash now?
An irish view point.

[aznyron]

UMG I do not believe two planes can bring down 3 buildings so I am firm believer it was inside job
and was not done by alqueda or taliban or any other terrorist group and there is no evidence supporting it was done by them all hijackers were from Saudi Arabia why are we in Iraq & Afghanistan. also
why was it only Bin Laden family be allowed to fly out of the USA when all other flights coming
in & going out cancelled read the engineering report not the one supplied by the commission to investigate 9/11 that was a big joke as well as biggest lie perpetrated on the American people follow the money
Silverstein made billions on 9/11 he also made a verbal mistake when being inter vied he said I quote he told the N.Y/City F.D. to pull it meaning to demolish the building now I will tell you they do not demolish building there job is only to save lives & put out fires and they are not qualified in building demolition
you can research it your self I just gave you some information were you go with it is up to you but please do not insult my intelligence by calling Bush a good President he oil man and were are we in oil rich country fighting a war

[seymourbutts]

Seymourbutts wrote "And LL you are a guest in a country that has a large population of muslims, im sure that fact will change your mind about living here. why not go home and defend your country instead of procrastinating here????"


Sorry Seymour,,,, this comment seems to be an indication of your attention to detail and general fact-acquiring capabilities. My posts clearly indicate I'm currently in Virginia and I'm going to be here awhile until some family issues are cleared up. I wish I was able to be there and we could have a good debate "mano el mano" After a couple of cold ones we may even agree to disagree, eh? By the way, I believe I posted somewhere there are many many muslims here and they have my full respect and defense under the law,,,,,, If they respect our laws and customs. I don't think that's too much to ask. Cheers,, LL

Do you ever give up??? Not only do you support water boarding now its beer boarding... yes that old chestnut!!! Torture by beer!!! well just for scientific purposes and to actually establish fact and fiction i will volunteer to try this type of torture and see how bad it is to enable me to give an unbiased opinion to who so ever shall be interested!!!!!

[merchant seaman]

Water boarding isn't torture. It was more likely the first bath in months

[ULICK MC GEE]

aznyron,i have heard about the inside job and i read micheal moore book on 9/11 but i admit i never researched it .The problem i have is,the number of people needed for such stunt somebody,sometime,somewhere will talk,it would be impossable to keep it classified and that is it's major flaw.

[LoongLee]

Aznyron wrote (partial quote) "I do not believe two planes can bring down 3 buildings so I am firm believer it was inside job and was not done by alqueda or taliban or any other terrorist group and there is no evidence supporting it was done by them"

Ron,,,,I'm amazed and dumfounded,,,, I'm RAOTFLMAO I've seen you support every wacky conspiracy theory known to man and some that aren't. And now you're saying that two huge jet airliners filled with aviation fuel can not strike a building and the resulting fire storm be so hot that it causes the steel I-beams to fail, resulting in total loss of structural strength, collapsing on to the floors below,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, huh? simple physics proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.... come on Ron, please pick another conspiracy theory,,, how about the 2nd and 3rd man at the JFK assassination ?,,,,,,,,,,,,55555555

[LoongLee]

As far as torturing the poor terrorists,,,,, wah, wah, wah Our college students undergo worse at spring break,,,,, oh no,,, we made them strip naked and had a US female lead them around on a leash,,,, wah, wah, wah They got that for free,,,,, at most of the sin palaces they like to frequent (Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, etc) they would pay a fortune to have that done to them,,,

[aznyron]

L L it not a conspiracy theory it facts from people who were interviewed and as for the fuel it burned outside the building not inside and fire can NOT bring down a concrete steel building especially when all the steel was sprayed with asbestos which is out lawed to day I got my facts from more reliable people than the 9/11 commission I also want to inform you both the President & Vice President refused to go under oath when questioned also they refused to be questioned alone since when are they above the law
also the 9/11 commission had to submit all question before they can be asked this is not the way a investigation works so L.L you have your opinion I have mine I doubt very much if I change mine
and since you brought up President Kennedy Lee H. Oswald is no more guilty of shooting the President than my grand daughter is and she is only 19 you can believe the warren commission if you like that also had
load of holes and lies in it also since when does the driver of the President continue driving 5 miles a hour when shots are being fired at them that was shown on the McGruder film which was locked up in the times life building for over 20 years for fear it would be confiscated by the FBI and I can on go about that one also
adios time to go

[cookie]

As far as torturing the poor terrorists,,,,, wah, wah, wah Our college students undergo worse at spring break,,,,, oh no,,, we made them strip naked and had a US female lead them around on a leash,,,, wah, wah, wah They got that for free,,,,, at most of the sin palaces they like to frequent (Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, etc) they would pay a fortune to have that done to them,,,

but, but...it was torture before,
so now it is no longer torture???
The US jailed Japanese soldiers for water boarding in the past,
It was torture then,...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 05_pf.html

washingtonpost.com

In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 5, 2006; A17

Key senators say Congress has outlawed one of the most notorious detainee interrogation techniques -- "waterboarding," in which a prisoner feels near drowning. But the White House will not go that far, saying it would be wrong to tell terrorists which practices they might face.

Inside the CIA, waterboarding is cited as the technique that got Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the prime plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to begin to talk and provide information -- though "not all of it reliable," a former senior intelligence official said.

Waterboarding is variously characterized as a powerful tool and a symbol of excess in the nation's fight against terrorists. But just what is waterboarding, and where does it fit in the arsenal of coercive interrogation techniques?

On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a front-page photograph of a U.S. soldier supervising the questioning of a captured North Vietnamese soldier who is being held down as water was poured on his face while his nose and mouth were covered by a cloth. The picture, taken four days earlier near Da Nang, had a caption that said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk."

The article said the practice was "fairly common" in part because "those who practice it say it combines the advantages of being unpleasant enough to make people talk while still not causing permanent injury."

The picture reportedly led to an Army investigation.

Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.



"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said.

A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963," outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. "Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role," the manual states.

The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of "touchless torture" until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.

Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presented "basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation." When it comes to torture, however, the handbook advised that "the threat to inflict pain . . . can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain."

In the post-Vietnam period, the Navy SEALs and some Army Special Forces used a form of waterboarding with trainees to prepare them to resist interrogation if captured. The waterboarding proved so successful in breaking their will, says one former Navy captain familiar with the practice, "they stopped using it because it hurt morale."

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the interrogation world changed. Low-level Taliban and Arab fighters captured in Afghanistan provided little information, the former intelligence official said. When higher-level al-Qaeda operatives were captured, CIA interrogators sought authority to use more coercive methods.

These were cleared not only at the White House but also by the Justice Department and briefed to senior congressional officials, according to a statement released last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Waterboarding was one of the approved techniques.

When questions began to be raised last year about the handling of high-level detainees and Congress passed legislation barring torture, the handful of CIA interrogators and senior officials who authorized their actions became concerned that they might lose government support.

Passage last month of military commissions legislation provided retroactive legal protection to those who carried out waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques.

On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."
"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning."

Conclusion:

Water boarding was and still is torture!!!!!!!

Torture was and still is a WAR CRIME !!!!

treat it as such so that torture will not be unpunished and let's hope that it will be a lesson for everybody....

[seymourbutts]

Cookie, sorry mate you just could not get further away from the truth.... You omitted some important points!!!!
1. if the suspect has a beard and talks funny then torture is ok.
2. Its only classified as torture if its done by anyone other than an american!
3. Its not a war crime unless you are japanese!!

Need i go on? A war crime is a war crime is a war crime.... Waterboarding has been defined by the US govt as torture, In fact people have been convicted by the US for it!!!! so why is right now?????

If cheney/bush authorised these means of torture then they are as guilty as the japanese who were convicted all those years ago...

Sorry you just cant change the goal posts to suit!!!

[AussieBoy]

CIA advert: wanted top quality water technicans, must know how to use a old fashion washboard, must Not be US citizen, must live outside US tettority, will be classified as outside CONTRACTOR, training given apply today

[cookie]

why not combine two posts:

pa·tri·ot [páytree ət, páytree òt]
(plural patriots)
noun
supporter of own country: a proud supporter or defender of his or her country and its way of life


so torture is patriotic because it is an effective tool to protect his or her country????????

[cookie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

In a July 2002 document uncovered by the Washington Post, the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency warned that the Bush administration’s interrogation program was “torture” and that it would produce “unreliable information.” JPRA is the military agency that ran the program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), “which trains pilots and others to resist hostile questioning.” JPRA warned in the 2002 document:

The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel.

So the Bush Administration was warned by The US military that it was torture,
they continued in any case with this torture.
Torture is a WAR CRIME and the Bush Administration knew in 2002 that they were committing WAR CRIMES
and all that time, Bush and Co ( Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rise,...) were shouting on TV:
"The US does not torture"

Obama is preparing the country by releasing the evidence first — overwhelming, vivid evidence.
No administration has ever before released such a massive amount of damning material revealing crimes by the US government.

The Obama administration is set to intensify the torture debate by releasing scores of new pictures showing abuse of prisoners held by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The pictures were taken between 2001 and 2006 at detention centres other than Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison, confirming that abuse was much more widespread than the US has so far been prepared to admit.

The Bush administration had repeatedly blocked through legal channels appeals from human rights groups for release of the pictures, which are held by the Army Criminal Investigation Division. But the Obama administration late yesterday lifted all legal obstacles and the pictures are to be published by 28 May.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ap ... fghanistan

[BKKSTAN]

Cookie, sorry mate you just could not get further away from the truth.... You omitted some important points!!!!
1. if the suspect has a beard and talks funny then torture is ok.
2. Its only classified as torture if its done by anyone other than an american!
3. Its not a war crime unless you are japanese!!

Need i go on? A war crime is a war crime is a war crime.... Waterboarding has been defined by the US govt as torture, In fact people have been convicted by the US for it!!!! so why is right now?????

If cheney/bush authorised these means of torture then they are as guilty as the japanese who were convicted all those years ago...

Sorry you just cant change the goal posts to suit!!!

Somebody already said it,''War is a crime'' and the war against relatively small groups of guerrilla terrorists that are probably on the verge of having WMD's at their disposal means that the ''goalposts need to be changed to suit'' the needs to combat and defend against this major threat!
It is my belief that the info ''extracted''so far by whatever means has probably prevented massive amounts of 9/11 type attacks!I am and always be thankful for the Iraq and Iran actions taken by the last administration with the exception of the defense dept.leadership under Rumsfield.I would have liked to see a military specialist in charge of both.Either way the goals of preventing possible WMD's from reaching these terrorist cells was reason enough for the Iraq invasion and putting Al Queda on the back foot with the possibilty of demolishing them was a good enough reason for Afghanistan!

This is not a game,political ot theoretical!This is about defending against those who have no rules,those that are intent on inflicting as much ''terror'' as possible by any means possible!I say if they threaten us or attack us,take it to them in any manner needed to win!

Playing at the ''high moral'' ground has always been a bit of a farce in all wars as we have never had an enemy that followed the rules!

Combat is about protecting and saving your comrades in arms while trying to acheive a military objective,the war is about saving and preserving your Nation and your way of life against a threatening force!It is not a game of verbalizations,PC BS practiced by many and the BS UN!

[ULICK MC GEE]

the american people have bowed to an individual of suadi,they sat and listened to insult after insult in central america,why not put iceing on the cake,BEHEAD bush & co in the whitehouse rose garden,think of the revenue sales to cable tv would create and if you really want to impress arabs ban toilet paper.

[BKKSTAN]

the american people have bowed to an individual of suadi,they sat and listened to insult after insult in central america,why not put iceing on the cake,BEHEAD bush & co in the whitehouse rose garden,think of the revenue sales to cable tv would create and if you really want to impress arabs ban toilet paper.

What are you doing,handing out research projects for the PC crowd??? =D> =D> =D>